Ashes of Time
by Anera527
Summary: WHN for 'The Hunter'. Tanner leaves a greater mark than any of the Cartwrights are willing to admit. When a madman marks you as a target, how do you manage to escape? Only Joe Cartwright knows the answer to that question- and he's not telling.
1. Chapter 1

_"_ _Ashes of Time"_

Chapter 1

~/~/~/~/~

 _'_ _Be not afraid of sudden fear, neither of the desolation of the wicked, when it cometh.'_

-Proverbs 3: 25

~/~/~/~/~

Hot, dry sand scalds the back of his throat, coating it in a thick layer that makes him want to gag. But his body cannot cough; he barely has the strength to raise his head, every limb trembling from exhaustion and the abuse his mindless flight has done to it. He's close to dying— gone without water for too long, his body is starting to shut down, leaving him in a haze of confusion and fear, and he's almost forgotten why he's been running in the first place.

He opens bleary, stinging eyes and is surprised to discover that he's lying in a pool of water quickly turning to mud. A spring rain, he remembers now, come down from the mountains— wherever _here_ is. His flight has led him into reaches of the desert he's never been in before, and he realizes he's stumbled blindly into a ghost town. No one to help him. No one to stop the madman on his trail.

And then a thin, easy whistling wafts up like a bad smell on the wind, the familiar tune of 'Frere Jaques' enough to send a bolt of terror racing through him. If he would only look over his shoulder he's sure he would see the tall, thin figure ambling easily towards him with rifle held ready in his arms.

Tanner has caught up to him, and he plans to put a bullet in Joe Cartwright's brain.

Joe's exhaustion prevents him from staggering to his feet. He has no spirit left for survival; he's running on unadulterated terror now, a cornered rabbit wounded and about to be torn apart by the hounds, and they both know it. He drags himself with elbows and knees, hands straining at the mud as if seeking purchase, until he reaches a broken water trough. Tanner is just reaching the outskirts of the town, his whistling low and steady. But the footsteps are suddenly different now, no longer the soft and careful tread of an Army tracker, but heavy crunching under feet that bear a large weight. Three hundred pounds of weight to be exact, and Joe's heart freezes in his chest as he realizes what those footsteps signify. Hardly daring to believe it he looks over his shoulder and the edge of the water trough, and he recoils.

"No,' he whimpers, pleading with a God he doesn't dare believe in now. He's frozen where he sits watching those cold eyes sight him cowering there and he can only wait.

"Joe."

The sweet, soft voice comes from in front of him and he twists back around to find himself facing a vision worse than what's approaching him from behind. He howls his denial and grief to the heavens but there is no answer except for a smile from the burnt and scarred face of his wife Alice. Her long brown hair is matted and crisp with ash, her skin blackened and shriveled; the yellow dress she had been wearing the day she'd been murdered is melted into her body, peeling away like wallpaper from burnt sinew and bone.

Her teeth are perfect and blindingly bright as she steps closer to him. "I'm here, Joe," she tells him happily with that beautiful voice he still misses every day. "Don't you miss me?" He recoils from her reaching hand.

"Wake up," he whispers desperately, trembling uncontrollably. "Wake up, Cartwright, _wake up_!"

"'Fraid this ain't a dream," comes the voice from behind him, and hoss walks into view holding the rifle ready in his large hands. His clothes are soaked and he's lost his beloved ten-gallon white hat, and there's a hardness to his features that is even more frightening than Joe's dead wife. "And you cain't escape what happens now, little brother." He shifts the rifle expertly against his shoulder, aiming carefully. "Luckily you ain't gonna see the mess this bullet makes of your head."

The rifle's safety clicks in the defining silence as lightning flashes from the grant clouds far above, and the last thing Joe Cartwright knows is the roar of the rifle as his brother pulls the trigger—

~/~/~/~/~

He wakes up screaming, sobbing his brother's name. The bed he's laying in seems too small, the blankets suffocating him as he tries to sit up. The house shakes from the force of thunder and the room is illuminated with another flash of lightning. He hears himself scream again, desperate to escape and run but the bed has captured him and he chokes on a haggard breath.

"Joseph!"

Soft gentle hands take hold of him, trying to calm him before he injures himself more, but Joe bats them away with his freed left hand. "Let me go!" he screeches. "Don't touch me! _Let me go_!" He can't make sense of anything; his world is hazy and unfocused, and he feels very cold, and although he feels his right arm throbbing with pain he can't seem to move it. That realization makes his elf-control dissolve entirely, and he's screaming obscenities and pleading all at once, and he knocks those reaching hands away once again.

" _Ben_!" a second voice exclaims. "Ben, let him go! Let him go, he's going to hurt you!"

"He's going to injure himself more, Paul!"

"Let him go— _now_! Candy— Candy, get in here and help me. Hold down his shoulders. Jamie, you hold down his legs, make sure he doesn't kick out."

There's movement and still caught within the vestiges of the nightmare Joe thinks the red-shirted figure bending over to pin him down is Tanner. He panics and bucks against the bed but his legs are already held immobilized; desperate to free himself he tries to move his right arm again and when that fails he spits in Tanner's face and when the man flinches back he bites him in the arm hard enough he can taste blood.

"Ouch! _Sonofabitch_! Damn it, Joe, stop it! We're only trying to help you. Doc— you gotta get hm calm right now, his fever's too high for him to be active like this—"

"Hold him, Candy. I can't take the risk of the needle missing the vein, it would hurt him even more. Ben, we need ice up here, and we need it now. I have to wrap him in ice, otherwise he's going to start having seizures if we can't bring that fever down."

Fever? He doesn't have a fever, he's only burnt by the sun, that's why he's so hot. He's fine, why can't they see that? The second pair of hands are there again, holding him down in an angle Joe can't lash out at; helpless, spent, and terrified he tosses his head from side to side, sobbing again. "Let me go," he whimpers, his breath rattling deep in his chest as he tries to get up again. His legs are still pinned, however, and he can't move them. "Please, let me go. Tanner…"

He hears a low sound from the end of the bed; a sob. "You're okay, Joe," his brother Jamie's voice chokes out in the darkness. "We're gonna help you."

Little brother Jamie. Big brother Hoss. Hoss, pointing Tanner's hunting rifle at him in that ghost town. _Why_? "Hoss," he moans, unable to stop his trembling. "Hoss… I need to see… Hoss." It's hard to speak; his speech is slurred no matter how hard he tries to stop it. The room grows deathly quiet at once. Insensible, Joe demands his older brother again.

It's the hands that hold his shoulders that answer. "Hoss will be here soon, Joe, real soon. Just go on back to sleep, okay? Jamie's right, we're gonna help you. Go to sleep."

The slim prick of a needle signifies he's lost the battle; he hasn't freed himself from his captors and Tanner's still out there whistling and waiting to kill him. Joe can't sleep now, he's got to keep moving, but he's going to die because he's being forced to sleep.

Alice is coming to get him. He recalls her burnt smiling face and his tears flow freely even as he slips away into oblivion. "Alice," he moans. "Alice, don't let him kill me…"

~/~/~/~/~

A/N: Second chapter coming soon.


	2. Chapter 2

"Chapter 1"

The next time Joe wakes up it's to warm sunlight streaming through the window, its soft beams falling across his legs. He's covered in blankets up to his chest and he's not wearing a shirt. His eyes feel scratchy and his mouth still feels coated with sand, and he nearly sighs in relief when he sees through his haze the pitcher of water sitting beside the bed, but he quickly discovers that he can't pour it into a glass. His right arm, broken like a snapped twig on his fall in the desert, has been reset and wrapped in bandages so thick it looks like a cast.

"Never break anything unimportant," he rasps to himself ruefully, and is startled by the the roughness of his voice. How long has it been since he's used it?

"Pa?"

He rarely wakes up alone when he's sick or injured— it's been a long unspoken fact of life that until an injured son is awake and aware, Ben Cartwright is going to remain beside their beds.

Joe falls back against his pillows, hoping that his pa's absence means he's gone to catch up on some much-needed sleep. But the water is too inviting for him to simply lie there and look at it. With a low growl Joe drags himself up into a sitting position and tries to ignore how painful it is to move. His dry throat hurts more, however, and he's determined to pour himself some water. It's slow-going and tiresome bringing his legs over the side of the mattress, and when he places them on the floor he's not prepared for how they throb.

Tanner had left him with nothing but the clothes on his back and the boots on his feet, Joe remembers, and he suddenly feels very faint; his green jacket he had left behind at the creek trying to trick the madman, and the soles of his shoes had been peeling off leaving his feet unprotected long before he reached that silent ghost town.

The water is warm and tepid from sitting out too long but to Joe it's the most delicious he's ever had, and he struggles not to gulp it all down at once. He's learned his lesson several times over not guzzling down drink on a stomach unable to handle it. His hand is shaky and he still feels hazy as he finishes the glass off, and those simple facts scare him.

How long has he been in this room? How long has it been since Tanner tracked him in the desert? He doesn't know. He's not sure if he wants to know. He's starting to tremble again thinking about those few hours that turned into the most terrifying time in his life. The melody of 'Frere Jaques' wafts from memory and he feels ill. His stomach twists warningly and it's all he can do not to throw up all over his bedroom rug.

He collapses backwards onto the bed, shivering and angry. "Pull yourself together, Cartwright," he whispers to himself fiercely. "He's dead. He's dead and he can't come back."

The door swings open and Joe looks up, startled, to find Jamie leaning in. Seeing him gazing back the boy's face splits into a wide smile. "You're awake!" he exclaims, and spinning around he shouts down the stairs, "Pa! Pa, Joe's awake!"

Joe manages a weak, albeit genuine grin his younger brother's direction. "Better move outta the way, Jamie," he says hoarsely. "Pa'll come barreling in here in three— two—"

Right on cue Ben rushes through the doorway, narrowly missing Jamie as the boy moves out of the way. His father's face is drawn from exhaustion and worry but he manages to drop five years as he sees Joe awake and grinning tiredly at him.

"Joseph!" he exclaims needlessly. "How do you feel, son? You've had us worried for days- we weren't sure when you would wake up." There's a tremor there to his tone, a relieved slump to his broad sturdy shoulders that warns Joe his pa isn't being entirely forthright with all information. But then Pa's hands are there gripping his left arm tightly and he's dismayed to find the loving brown eyes shining with tears.

"Pa—?"

"Hop Sing will bring you up some broth in a bit, son." Ben's large hand is checking Joe's forehead and a frown creases his brow. "Still feverish," he mutters quietly. "I'm afraid we haven't been able to get you to take in many fluids, you've been rather difficult the past few days—"

He'd been dying a few days ago. Dying in the desert, alone and chased by Tanner's demonic shadow, his mouth cracked and dry from lack of any moisture. The falling rain that comes is painful on his parched mouth

"Joe!" Jamie's voice is raised in fright.

Hands are gripping him in a vice-like grip, a sturdy arm slinging around his waist as he's lowered flat onto the bed. "Joseph! Joe- son- look at me. Look at me!"

Pa's age-weathered hands are cupping his face, warm and familiar and safe, and Joe blinks to find Ben bending over him. He's wrapped in his blankets somehow and he abruptly feels his stomach roil. "Gonna be sick," he manages to gasp thickly, and the basin arrives in time to catch the water and bile he throws up.

He's dizzy and achy by the time he finishes, his throat raw and tender as he coughs. He wishes for Tanner's shadow to disappear forever from his peripheral vision just so that he's not jumping at every movement anymore. The bastard is in hell. The thought sends a vicious satisfaction through him but he wishes Tanner would leave him alone.

"How bad was it?" he croaks when he finally finishes with the basin. He's sweating and exhausted and all he wants to do is drift off into the oblivion of sleep.

"Bad enough," Pa answers tersely, moving the basin away.

Jamie is staring at Joe white-faced as if he's seen a ghost and the look of fear on the boy's face is unnerving enough that after catching his breath Joe blurts out, "Sit down, Jamie, before you fall down."

He watches as his brother manages to seat himself on the end of the bed before his shaking knees give way, making the bed creak with his slight but sudden weight. The noise catches Pa's attention from where he's setting the basin down and his frown shows all-too-clearly the worry he's been trying to hide.

"Jaime," Pa says in the deepening silence, "you should go back downstairs and finish your breakfast before it gets any colder. Hop Sing's liable to throw a fit if his food isn't eaten."

For a moment the boy looks like he wants to argue with their father, but then wisely he closes his mouth and nods silently. He manages a smile in Joe's direction. "I'll be up later."

The door barely has time to click shut before Pa's hand is resting on Joe's forehead, checking for fever. It's there, both of them know, but Joe isn't sure how badly it's risen. The concern in his father's expression can't be masked and it frightens him. "How bad is it?" He's shifted the past tense in the sentence to the present deliberately, just as he deliberately grabs hold of Pa's wrist to keep the latter from moving away.

He's had fevers enough, after all, to know he's definitely got one now.

And his father hesitates. That's the first clue. His stomach clenches. "Pa? How bad is it?"

"Bad, Joseph. You haven't been conscious for four days."

The old man brought him here in an old creaky wagon. That he remembers, but even those memories are shadowed by encroaching delirium. He can recall the relief he'd felt when he saw the familiar ranch house. After that the fever and dehydration must have begun taking their toll.

"My arm," he says suddenly. "I broke my arm." He shifts as Pa pulls away. "Infected?"

"Yes. It started the other day. Paul will be back tonight to take another look at it. He's had to drain it."

Joe tries to control a wave of fear at his father's sentence. He'd had to face a badly infected arm a couple of years ago when a horse had trampled him in the barn and broken both his forearm and leg. Now he knows why he thinks the haze he's still fighting now seems familiar. He'd had to fight delirium during that time before, too. The terror of a possible amputation comes crashing back.

His father seems to realize the drift of his thoughts because his hand is gripped tightly. "Amputation is absolutely the last option, son. I've made that very clear to Paul."

Clear or not, the possibility is there. Don't make me go through that again, he begs whatever God may be listening. The thought that it may happen anyway makes him sick again.

~/~/~/~/~

The telegram had arrived quite innocently just three days ago. It's message had been simple and blunt, consisting of only two words: Come home. It was such a baffling message that it begged to be answered.

Carefully maneuvering his way out of the stage, Adam Cartwright folds up the now-crumpled paper and puts it back into his pocket. It's managed to survive the trip across the states from Boston without too much damage but his restless fingers have left their mark. He hasn't set foot in his home state of Nevada for close to nine years now but the cryptic plea from his father has drawn him home like nothing else could. Hoss's death was the harshest blow he's ever read on paper but those two short words written on this crumpled telegram has scared him in a way nothing else has.

So he's come home. All he can hope is that he will not find yet another tragedy at the Ponderosa.

The old riding path hasn't changed since his departure. The dirt is still a golden tan, the dry dirt of summer still just as choking. That terrible wind still blows in his face. The trees seem bigger than before, and they arch above him like a cathedral's majestic roof.

For all intents and purposes, yes, the Ponderosa hasn't changed at all.

Adam knows better.

It's well past nightfall when he reaches the old familiar ranch house. A light shines softly in the front window, letting him know that there's at least one person still up despite the late hour. Despite his fear and uncertainty Adam can't help but smile, surprised by the surge of homesickness he feels seeing that worn front door.

His dismount is more difficult than it had been a few years ago, his limbs not as limber or as flexible, and his added weight hinders his easy movement. The strain on his inner thighs as he slides to the ground warns him he's going to be punished tomorrow for daring to sit in a saddle. Tying his borrowed mount— a tall, sturdy chestnut— to the hitching post he approaches the door in trepidation.

Should he knock? He's still a Cartwright; the Ponderosa is his birthright. But after nearly a decade Adam feels like a stranger.

A stranger in a strange land. So Moses had said while in Midian. The Ponderosa is no more strange to him than his own hands are but he knows already that the ranch has irrevocably changed in his time away. There could be no going back to those days in which it was Adam and Hoss and Little Joe exasperating their father so very thoroughly by their antics./span/p

His hesitation about the door is decided for him when it swings abruptly open with the squeak of an old hinge, and a lanky redheaded boy looks back at him. For a moment Adam is startled but then he remembers his father's letters. He manages a cool smile. "You must be Jamie."

The boy's reaction is answer enough. He has a worse poker face than Little Joe ever did. The boy is gangly and amidst the awkward teenage years Adam himself can hardly recall but his eyes are guileless and curious as he looks at this hatless stranger. "Can I help you, Mister—?"

"I'm here to see Ben Cartwright," Adam replies easily, ignoring the prompt that Jamie is handing him. "Is he in?" Buck is in his stall so he hopes that his father hasn't had to leave the ranch by other means. Looking over the boy's shoulder he can't see if anyone is in the living room or sitting at the desk. It makes him nervous.

Jamie's mouth opens soundlessly for a moment, then closes again.

"Jamie?" The answer to Adam's question calls from the top of the steps, the beloved voice just as deep and soothing as his son remembers. It's rough with tiredness. "Was it Candy who rode in?"

"No, Pa. He won't give me his name." Jamie looks back at Adam with mistrust in his expression now and he doesn't back away from the doorway. "He wants to see you, Pa."

"Well, let him in, Jamie. You can't let a visitor simply stand in the night air." The stairs creak as Ben begins his descent to the bottom floor but he stops with a foot frozen halfway through a step when Adam replies,

"I hope I'm more than a visitor, Pa, even after all this time."

"Adam!" The booming shout is enough to shake the rafters overhead and Adam watches his father take the remaining steps at a speed men twenty years younger could take. There is a wide, disbelieving smile starting to appear on his father's face and Ben fairly drags him through the door. "Adam, my goodness! When did you get here, boy? Jamie didn't leave you out there too long, did he?"/span/p

"Not at all, Pa." Smiling coolly in the redhead's direction, Adam continues, "It was smart of him to make sure I wasn't a danger to his family."

The door clicks shut. Jamie is staring in open wonder at this dark-haired stranger, taking in the balding head and grey-streaked beard, the guarded copper-hued eyes. He has been told of his pa's third son, his eldest, but truthfully Jamie had never had much hope of meeting the mysterious Adam Cartwright. Now here he is, and he's entirely taken aback. "You're Adam?" he blurts out without thinking, and immediately his mouth clicks shut in mortification. He flushes a red that rivals his vivid hair.

But Adam doesn't seem to take offense. His smile is thin but there is genuine amusement in his eyes as he replies. "All of me, yes."

Unsure if he's being laughed at or not, Jamie swallows nervously and finally rubs his hands down his pants. "I, uh— I'll go see what's keepin' Doc."

Adam's arm is gripped by his father and he's led into the living room. The great open room is just as immaculate and warm as always. A fire burns in the hearth, a reminder of cold winter nights when Adam and his brothers were younger. He removes his gloves and sets his hat above the credenza and seats himself on the couch, looking curiously up at his father.

"The doctor's here? Whatever for?" Pa's telegram had been vague, unhelpful in the way of details, and his sense of joyful homecoming is steadily shifting now into a state of worry. Pa looks exhausted and wan, older than his sixty years are.

"Joe," comes the short, worried reply, and Adam's heart drops. What has his baby brother landed himself in now? The heavy and oppressive atmosphere in the house is nearly overwhelming and informs him that Joe's troubles are truly serious this time.

"What's happened, Pa?"

Pa shakes his head. There's a helplessness there in the gesture that clenches his gut. "We don't know. He left a week ago to complete some business with the army and he was brought back four days ago out of his head and severely dehydrated with a broken arm."

"How did it happen? Did he meet up with some Indians?" Dear God, not that. Anything but that. What the Indians did to their captives could be brutal.

He's relieved, temporarily, when his father shakes his head. "It was a man, we think. He's had nightmares. Someone he calls Tanner."

Paul Martin's appearance at the top of the stairs stalls any other questions Adam wants to put towards his father. "He's awake for now, Ben," he says in a voice grating with tiredness. "His arm is flaring up again, I had to drain some infection away. His fever's spiking."

Pa is suddenly far too pale for Adam's liking. "He was rallying just this morning," he says hollowly.

Paul shakes his head helplessly. "The fever is the problem, Ben. His arm's looking better but it's not completely free of infection. That run through the desert nearly killed him, he's fighting without any reserves."

"So it's my son's fault that he's so ill?" Driven past endurance Pa's temper flares, surprising Adam and making his concern rise even more. "It was that- that madman who chased Joseph and was aiming to kill him!"

Chasing? A madman. Adam feels suddenly cold thinking of the face the word 'madman' conjures, and his concern for his youngest brother shifts into fear. What the hell has he happened to come home to? He stands and gently grabs hold of Pa's arm. "Doc's only helping, Pa," he states softly.

His words makes Pa slump. Taking a shaky breath he rubs his eyes in exhaustion and looks at Paul apologetically. "I'm sorry, Paul," he says. That's it; no explanation, no excuses— they all know the reason for his frayed temper.

"He's asked for you, Ben."

"Will he still be awake?"

Paul nods. "For now. I'd like to have Candy come up here soon, too. Joe would like to speak to him."

"Candy?" Pa repeats with a frown.

The sadness of Paul's smile shifts into outright amusement. "Apparently he's realized how that 'horse bite' got on Candy's arm."

"Doc, could I—?"

Paul hesitates for a fraction of a second, clearly wondering if Joe can handle the surprise visit of his oldest brother, but he must be able to see the need rising in Adam's dark eyes— or, Adam thinks treacherously, the doctor believes that this is the last time the brothers will be able to see each other alive. "Go on, son," Paul says aloud. "He'd want to see you." They expect an argument from Ben but none is forthcoming, so Adam hurriedly mounts the stairs before pausing at the closed door of his brother's room. His baby brother, the one Adam had helped raise and teach and nurture for almost half of Joe's life.

He knocks on the oak door, his knuckles stinging briefly from the strength he'd put behind it, but his stomach is in knots and he feels oddly wrong-footed. It takes all he has to hide his churning emotions behind the cool facade he's perfected over the years. He hears Joe's quiet call to come in.

"You don't have to knock, Pa."

Adam swings open the door, leaning against the frame. "You know, I may be older than you, little brother, but I'm certainly not our father."

Joe stares at him for a long moment, stunned speechless. "I'll be damned," he croaks after a moment. He's exhausted and aching but it does nothing to diminish the wide smile that appears on his face. "Thought you'd died somewhere on the Atlantic, older brother."

"I tried," Adam replies smoothly, seating himself in Pa's waiting chair beside the bed. "Unfortunately I swim too well in water. I didn't know what was happening until Pa practically dragged me over the threshold. I wanted to surprise you." He smiles wanly. "It appears I've succeeded."

His smile is mirrored but Adam can't help but feel dismayed at the clear signs of illness ravaging Joe's body. His skin is pale, an almost pasty white; his wiry curls, overgrown and a surprising silvery grey, are damp with sweat. His eyes are flat, dull.

"Came just in time to nurse me back to health," Joe remarks with the familiar humor Adam remembers so well. The older brother barks a short laugh, willing to give as much as he got.

"I think I'll leave it to Pa and Doc Martin to haul your lazy butt out of bed."

A remark like that ten years ago would have gotten Adam a flare of temper and accusations that he automatically assumed that Joe couldn't pull his weight on the ranch. It's an indication of how much he's matured that now Joe simply grins and fires back, "So you'd let two old men take care of me, then?"

"I'd like to see you call Pa 'old' to his face, little brother."

The face may have aged but the mischief in Joe's cheshire grin hasn't changed at all. "I tell him so all the time. He still manages to prove me wrong."

"As well he should." He's been afraid of this reunion since he was sure it would become a reality but time and maturity has softened things between them, it seems. Adam sees his brother's gaze fall to the standing glass of water on the side table and he realizes the cruel joke that has unintentionally been played on Joe: the glass sits on his right side, where his arm lies limp and useless in a splint. Wordlessly Adam grabs it and holds it to his brother's mouth. He notices that Joe's lips are chapped and dry, raw from lack of moisture.

Chased through the desert. That's what Pa had said to the doctor. Chased through the desert by a madman. Adam imagines that this mysterious Tanner's pursuit had likely driven Joe to the ground dying from thirst.

He's assaulted by sudden memories, memories Adam had strived for years to keep buried; the brutal hunger that gnawed at his stomach and his terrible thirst as he watched Kane had been awful, a weakness that had driven him to inexplainable violence. The sun had been hot those days, that he could remember clearly, its heat a cloying smothering blanket that had wrapped around him and seemed to bake him from the inside out—

His hands are shaking badly enough that some of the water sloshes over the rim of the glass and lands on Joe's left arm. His brother says nothing— he doesn't need to. Joe seems to know exactly where Adam's thoughts have taken him. His calloused fingers grip Adam's wrist.

They sit in silence for a long moment, broken by nothing but their own heavily beating hearts. Then:

"He wanted me to want to kill him. He stole everything I had and told me I had four hours to run before he tracked me down and killed me. He said I'd want to murder him before he did."

Joe's voice is flat and unemotional. The ease of his confession reminds Adam suddenly of the time when Joe's friend Seth Pruitt had murdered a man in the name of mercy killing and wanted Joe to help him cover it up. It had been to Adam that Joe had first confessed everything to and it had spilled out of his mouth without any hesitation.

He'd needed Adam to listen. And Adam had— he'd listened and realized the awful spot into which Joe had been forced. He'd asked what he could do to help.

Hearing Joe explain now about his plight with a madman in bare, bald words, Adam knows he doesn't simply 'realize' this time.

This time he understands.

"Is there anything I can do to help, Joe?" He asks the same question he had all those years ago. He already knows that his brother isn't going to recover from this experience, not really, but he's determined to help him do just that anyway.

The grin is back but it's unbearably sad, making Joe's response less sentimental and more grim: "You already are, Adam."


	3. Chapter 3

**_"Chapter 3"_**

That night, they almost lose him.

Joe's perpetual fever skyrockets once again when it nears midnight; one last fight, Paul says heavily, to see whether he will live or die. Leaving all reality and logic behind, he curses Tanner as his nightmares take hold and it's obvious he's back in the desert running for his life. He thrashes and moans as the fever ravages his already-taxed body and he begs for help.

Adam stands guard over his younger brother that night, forcing Pa to bed when the latter stands up dizzy from exhaustion, and watches Joe toss and turn. He's careful to keep plenty of ice water ready and constantly drenches the washcloths to wipe the sweat from his brother's face. When he feels Adam's touch, Joe calms. It's so like when Adam had shot his youngest brother while wolf-hunting and he had had to nurse the boy through his fever-riddled illness.

But Joe is no longer a boy— he's a man, solid chested and sturdy like Pa is, and while his features are still youthful there are premature lines dug around his eyes and mouth that Adam doesn't recall.

And the pleas Joe utters now are not of a brother innocently hurt while hunting an animal and calling for Adam to help him; now he cries for help as an animal being hunted, pleading for mercy. Adam's heart breaks wishing there's something he can do. It has been so very long since he has been back on the Ponderosa— a veritable lifetime, it seems sometimes— and there is so much that he doesn't know or realize yet. There had always been the occasional letter from Pa or his younger brothers, but eventually they had dwindled away or had been lost trying to keep up with Adam's travels. He had missed at least a year or two somewhere in the whole nine.

He's kept them all, most especially from the ones from Hoss. Few as they are, written in his younger brother's rough lettering and spelling mistakes. Hoss had never been one for intelligent book learning but Adam had always known that the middle Cartwright had easily been the wisest of the three brothers, and he had had the largest heart.

It doesn't feel like the Ponderosa without him here.

And now Joe is in danger of following in Hoss's footsteps. Adam knows without real logic that if his youngest brother dies now the whole of the Ponderosa will die— and Ben Cartwright with them. There have been so many close calls with all of them over the years, too many to actually count, but they had been all together then. They've lost one of the cornerstones holding up the family structure now— to lose more would lead to total collapse.

Jamie sneaks in around the time that Joe stills in unsettling silence, barely moving where he lay. Adam reaches out and washes his face with ice water and he's dismayed by the burning sweat he feels on his hand.

"He went quiet like this last night."

Startled, Adam jerks his hand back and swivels in his chair to find the redheaded boy standing in the doorway. Jamie's eyes are fixed on Joe so he misses the look Adam sends him. There's fear in the boy's face that stops Adam from reprimanding him for his unintentional scare. Before he can speak, however, Jamie asks,

"Has he called for Hoss?"

The question is unsettling for reasons Adam can't explain. Why should it have scared the boy so much that Joe had called for Hoss? He always did that when he was sick.

Jamie explains without prompting, reading Adam's confusion. "He went crazy last night. Fever, Doc said, makin' him see things that wasn't there. He… he was speakin' Alice's name and he was thrashin' and then he sat up straight and was screamin' Hoss's name. He was scared. Scared of Hoss."

Hoss?

Why Hoss?

It's irrational and illogical but Adam feels abruptly furious that this fever is somehow making Joe fear their brother's memory, however indirectly. His mouth tightens in a thin line and he can feel his hand tighten around the cloth he clutches in his fingers. He catches sight of Jamie's expression and pauses.

"It really scared you, huh?"

The boy nods. "My pa— he died from fever. He'd been tarred. There was nothin' I could do, the doc wasn't able to help him… and Joe just always seemed so untouchable, you know? Bad things have happened to him, yeah, but he was able to come back from those things. I ain't seen him so out of his head before."

There's not much Adam really knows about Jamie. The boy is an orphan adopted by his pa, that he knows best, but there's not much he's learned about his personality. He seems a feckless youth but Adam's wise enough to know that appearances can be deceiving. He's sympathetic as it is, though. "I didn't know that he was injured when I came here." It was the closest he could ever get to vocalizing the tightness in his chest and the aching in his gut. Shame, guilt, sadness… Adam thinks his father knows how he feels but he would be the only one able to see it.

He shakes himself. "You should be in bed." It comes out sharper than he had intended it, and Jamie stiffens against the doorframe.

"I wanted to make sure he was okay."

That's all Adam wants to know, too. He shakes his head. "Doc Martin said we'd know by dawn." He doesn't need to expand on the options they have when the sun rises over the mountains. Jamie pales at the reminder but he doesn't shy away. He's familiar with death already.

"What can we do?"

They could use more ice water. Doc Martin said earlier that they may need to wrap him in ice again if he's anything like the night before. A hundred different things flashes through Adam's mind at the question but the answer he gives surprises him.

"Pray."

"Don't know if I can," Jamie admits shamefully. "Ain't been the church-goin' type before. Never felt comfortable prayin'."

"Neither have I," Adam replies with a ghost of a smile. The boy looks surprised but heartened and he leaves for his own room intending to do just that.

The fever reaches its peak shortly after; Joe's skin is dry and hot and he begins to thrash and moan again. The broken arm is surprisingly free of obvious infection but Adam still fears the worst. He calls for Paul who is catching an hour of sleep in the guest bedroom and the doctor grimly states they need to bring up the ice.

"This is absolutely last measure, Adam," he says as they work together to break up the ice and haul it up. "He's too weak to do this again. Last night his heart nearly stopped. Tonight it very well might completely. If we can't bring that fever down…"

Adam has watched fever cook a body from the inside out more than once. He has no need nor desire to hear the details of it again. He focuses instead on the bald cold reality in front of him and pushes aside any emotion. His father wakes up to the sounds of their footsteps on the stairs and he immediately stands guard over Joe, taking over for bedsitter and trying to calm the latter's feverish ramblings.

Tonight, thank God, he doesn't call for Alice or Hoss.

The ice only helps to bring it down a bit. Paul is afraid of the cold being too much on Joe's already-taxed body and when he feels his patient's heart start stuttering he calls for a halt. His eyes are dark and heavy and he straightens up over the bed with anguish twisting his mouth. "It's up to the Lord now," is all the doctor says.

Adam watches his father's face whiten and he grabs hold of his arm to lead him to the chair before his knees buckle. It's not a moment too soon because he feels Pa sag heavily in his hold.

"Adam…"

Adam swallows heavily to hide his racing heart. "It'll be alright, Pa. You'll see. Joe's never let fever run him down before. It'll be alright."

Paul ushers them out almost immediately, telling them both that they must rest. How they're supposed to rest with Joe dying is a mystery, Adam thinks, but he's too tired both emotionally and physically to argue. Instead he helps his father down the stairs to the main room where he pours them both a drink of whiskey. Ben's hands are shaking as he accepts the glass.

"I should have come earlier," Adam says in the crushing silence. There's only one lamp burning and its meagre light casts long shadows across his face. The whiskey tastes like ash in his mouth.

"You came now," Pa replies quietly. "That's all that matters." There's no condemnation or judgment in his tone but it still hits him like a physical blow. How is Ben Cartwright so forgiving to him, the son who went off to see the world and never had an intention of coming back to this house?

Despite his fear and exhaustion, Ben reads his expression and knows what he's thinking. His lips twitch in an attempt at a smile. "'For this my son was dead,'" he quotes without trouble, "'and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.'"

Adam shakes his head. "I always thought Little Joe was more the prodigal son than me, Pa."

"I think he may agree with you, son." Quietly Ben takes another drink of his whiskey and looks up at his eldest son. He takes in the changes that ten years have brought about; the thicker waist and balding head and, most startlingly, the full salt and pepper beard. "I'm only sorry you've come back under such dire circumstances." He places his empty glass down with a loud clink. "Did Joseph speak about…?"

How much should Adam tell his father? Granted, there's not much he knows anyway but clearly his younger brother has not deemed it entirely necessary to say anything about the mysterious Tanner, or of the man's insane intentions to their father. He shouldn't betray Joe now.

"There's not much he said that you don't already know," he admits. It's not entirely a lie. "He seemed more confused by it than anything. 'I didn't even know him'. That's what he said." He doesn't explain the fear and the darkness of that statement, but it's something Adam understands completely.

Kane, after all, had picked a stranger randomly to torment all those years ago. Funny, he thinks, that we're all so shocked when strangers do such horrible things to us. But he shakes himself, too tired to be debating such things. He finishes the rest of his glass without hesitation and places it beside his father's. He can't give the older man a reassurance as good as a smile but he lays a hand on Ben's shoulder and squeezes it gently. Pa's fingers grip hold of his hand and holds on for a long moment.

"I'm glad you're home, son."

Adam doesn't know how long he's going to stay. He's not even entirely sure where he fits into his ragtag group that occupies the house where he and Hoss and Little Joe spent so many years together, but he's unwilling to further trouble his father and he merely nods.

"I am, too, Pa."

Paul comes down to join them some ten minutes later. He's worn and tired but his face doesn't make his presence a tragedy yet and father and son draw heart from that. "He was calling for Alice again."

Ben's face falls, something close to horror flashing in his dark eyes. He seems struck speechless from the information but Adam's curiosity grows too great. "Pa? Who's Alice?"

"You didn't get my letters?" His father looks up at him sadly. When Adam shakes his head in silent answer, he seems to droop. "Joe married about a year ago. When she was… she was pregnant, a group of men came and they…"

"They killed her, Adam," Paul says when it seems Ben can't continue. Even now the pain is too much for the family to willingly talk about. "They stole from the house and set it ablaze. The— the only thing that I can say was a blessing was that… she was likely dead before it burned down."

How was that a blessing? Adam swallows past the sick feeling in his stomach and looks up the stairs. There's so much he doesn't know about, so much that he's missed. How is he supposed to slide back into the dynamic of the family that he had left so many years before?

He supposes it'll be by helping them through this latest crisis. Starting with his younger brother. "I'll watch him again, Pa."

"Adam, you can't stay awake all night, you need to rest—"

"Pa." His quiet voice stops Ben in his tracks. "I need to. Please."

It's not a plea. It's a request. After a long worrying moment, his father nods. The doctor tries to protest but Adam manages to talk him around. He leaves the two in the main room after Jamie comes down and enters Joe's room with worry twisting his guts. Joe's hair is wet with the ice that the doc had wrapped him in and his skin isn't as flushed but he's back to moving and mumbling again. Would there be brain damage from the fever? It's a question Adam is afraid to find the answer to but he seats himself down in the chair and finally does what he hasn't done in years.

He bows his head and prays.

"Pa's always been the one with the faith in the family. He's always been the one who prays when someone's in trouble. I can't even say whether You're real but I know something's always managed to bring my little brother through the worst things. Miracles, Pa calls them. Well, we need one now. If You're the one who's always watched Joe's back, Lord, we need You to come through now. Bring Joe back to us."

There's so much more he wants to say but he can't find the words. If his father can be believed, though, God already knows exactly what a body's wanting to say without hearing them speak it aloud. He ends instead with a simple 'amen' and goes back to his silent vigil.

But exhaustion comes creeping upon him as the hour creeps by, and he finally sleeps where he sits.

And finally the fever breaks. Dawn is peeking over the mountains to the east and the shadows in the sickness-riddled room are shifting across the floor when Adam awakens in his seat. It's quiet and peaceful— so different from the bustle of the cities that he's spent the last few years in. Rubbing the crick from his neck, deciding that resting in that chair had been a bad idea, he blinks the sleep from his eyes.

"Joe?"

Hazy green eyes are watching him. They're clearer than they had been before but there's a tiredness to them that Adam's dismayed to see. Sweat glistens on his skin and soaks his unkempt hair. Joe manages a small smile for his older brother before he slips off into sleep again, leaving Adam with relief churning in his stomach and thankfulness shaking his hands. He places his hand on his brother's forehead, relieved further when he feels little heat from his skin.

The sound of a bird singing outside signals the morning, and he turns in his chair and watches the sliver of sun appear over the Sierras, and he simply says, "Thank you."


	4. Chapter 4

_**"Chapter 4"**_

"You have to eat, Joseph."

"I'm not hungry."

"Joe-"

"I said no, Pa."

Adam walks past his brother's door in time to overhear the exchange; at least some things haven't changed, he thinks with something akin to relief. Joe's infamous stubborness is atrocious when he's ill or recovering. With a small smile Adam leans against the doorway and takes in the scene before him.

Joe's color is better. The fever that had ravaged his body is almost completely gone after nearly a week and for that Adam is grateful, but the familiar glint is still absent from his green eyes. He looks, Adam thinks, almost like an old man- and not because of the grey in his tousled curls. Today Joe's sitting up with the aide of the pillows at his back and Pa is sitting beside him in the chair but Joe isn't looking at him. The thin mouth, the drawn brow- Adam sees it clearly. Joe's irritated; more than that, he's mad. For what, exactly, Adam isn't entirely sure but from Pa's own frown he realizes that father and youngest son are at wit's end with each other.

"Pa," Adam says now, drawing both of their gazes. Joe quickly looks away again, his attention fixed on the window. "Why don't you take a break. You look like you could use one."

It's an order thinly disguised as a suggestion, a fact that Pa surely recognizes. It's telling when he raises no serious objections. "Are you sure, son?"

"We'll be fine, Pa. Won't we, buddy?"

Joe snorts, unimpressed by the use of the moniker. "Whatever you say, Adam."

Pa stands. "I'll leave you to it, then." He pauses beside Adam as he leaves, speaking loud enough for Joe to hear. "Make sure he eats something, Adam. He's gone too long without something solid in his stomach."

"I'll try my best, Pa." Adam doesn't bother to remind his father that Joe has always done only what he wants, and no amount of persuasion or threats will convince him otherwise. He waits until Pa's footsteps make the stairs creak and then pushes off the doorframe. "What did Hop Sing make today?"

Joe eyes at him warily. He hasn't seen Adam as much over the past two days as he has Pa or Jamie or even Candy, and even though he's happy to see his oldest brother there's still a tension sitting between them. It's been nine years. He's not sure how to take this older, different Adam. "Eggs."

The tray sits on Joe's lap; the plate has gone cold it's been sitting for so long. The eggs themselves have not been touched. Adam takes a seat in the chair Pa vacated and sits in silence for a long moment. "Hop Sing isn't going to be pleased." It's the third meal Joe has left untouched.

Joe shakes his head. "I'm not hungry, Adam. Doc wants me to eat but nothing tastes right." He grimaces down at the plate. "I know that it's important to eat but I... it's hard." His voice is small as he finishes the sentence.

Adam thinks he understands; it's difficult, he knows, to be thankful to be alive when your mind is occupied with impossible questions. Even worse, he thinks, when there are answers that can never be given.

The dead, after all, can't speak.

And perhaps there has never been an answer to Joe's questions to begin with.

He doesn't bother to point this out- if those very thoughts haven't occured to Joe himself yet then they never will. He suspects, however, that they have. Joe may have been distractable and blaringly obtuse at times growing up but he has never been unintelligent.

He settles for the obvious older brother concern. "How's your arm this morning?"

It's still in a sling and Paul says it will be for some time yet, but the most important thing is that it's healing. The unamused look Joe gives him lets him know he's aware of Adam's game. "Better," he answers shortly, temper too frayed to allow for any teasing or beating around the bush today. "Drop the act, Adam. I'd like it better if you started ordering me to eat instead of this... whatever it is."

There. Adam sees flashes of the younger brother so easily irritated in his youth now and he's surprised when his own old sense of answering exasperation doesn't rise up to meet it. "Whatever Pa told me, it still stands that I want to see you eat something, too, Joe. We're not ganging up on you, whatever you may think."

"It sure seems like it," Joe snaps, but it's without bite. Everything about him seems muted and quiet now, and Adam sighs.

"What's really eating you, Joe? You're doing a very good job fooling Pa that you're just tired, but that's not going to work with me."

Joe looks away again and it's all the answer Adam needs. It's not what he's willing to settle for.

"Is this about calling for Hoss when you were sick, Joe?"

The effect the question has on his youngest brother is instantaneous; what little color remaining in Joe's face drains away to pasty white, and his fingers clench in the bedsheets until Adam's half-sure that they'll tear. "No," he whispers, suddenly shaky, and it's one of the most unconvincing lies Adam has ever heard.

"Really? Because your face says otherwise-"

"No!" Joe snaps again, this time with the heated bite Adam remembers. "Get out!" If he could have run himself he would, but there will be no running out of the barnyard on Cochise any time soon.

"No." Adam says it quietly, in direct opposition to the sudden frenzy of his younger brother's voice. He's seen self-destructive behavior before, and although Joe's not quite there yet in the usual sense, he's also not doing himself any favors. This he understands all too well. "You're not twelve anymore, either, so you should stop acting like you are."

There's real rage in Joe's face as he reacts. "I told you to get out!" Upset by his sudden movements the tray upends and spills the plate and the eggs on the floor, the clattering of them landing merely an excalamtion point to the tension in the air.

It also summons their father, who appears in the doorway in mere seconds. "Adam! Joseph!" His voice thunders to the rafters the way it hasn't in years, and instinctively both of them flinch from the power in his shout. Adam climbs to his feet. "What are you doing? You're both grown men, you should be able to hold a conversation without it degrading into a fight!"

"Pa, it's alright," Adam says hurriedly, gripping his arm gently. "C'mon, we'll give Joe a minute to calm down. It was my fault, anyway."

The confession stops both Pa and Joe short, and it allows Adam enough time to shepherd Pa out of the door and down the stairs. Jamie is sitting at the desk finishing up his math figures for school, and he looks at them in concern before turning back to his papers. "Adam, just because you said something that angered Joseph, he shouldn't have reacted the way he did. He's thirty years old, not ten."

Adam quirks a half-smile. "That's precisely what I told him right before he started shouting at me." He waits until his pa sits down in one of the chairs in front of the fireplace before sitting down himself. "Pa, don't be so hard on him because of the way he reacted just now. I asked him why he had shouted about Hoss so much when he was sick."

Pa stills for a moment. "Oh," he says softly, the anger in his posture drooping like a wilting flower.

"You know how badly I reacted to questions that had anything to do with Kane," Adam reminds him quietly. "Somehow Tanner and Hoss have been intertwined in Joe's mind and he'll react badly until we can get himt to talk about it." It took months before Adam had managed to explain everything that had happened to him following his meeting with Kane, and he doesn't doubt that it will be the same for Joe. But for now he feels a need to understand what it is that has linked the man who so tenaciously tried to kill Joe with the loving gentle brother they all remember.

Pa clearly is thinking the same things because he nods in silent agreement, all signs of anger and frustration fully gone now. He's lost weight; the long days and nights of trying to help Joe through his illness has taken a toll on all of them, but none so much as the head of the Cartwright family. Adam sighs. "I'll go up and sit with him again, Pa. Stay down here for now."

"Adam-"

"It'll be alright, Pa. Joe and I are old enough we can sort through an argument without resorting to blows." He allows a brief grin to appear on his face to reassure his father and stands. "I'll be back down shortly."

When he reaches the open doorway of Joe's bedroom, he finds his younger brother waiting for him. That in itself is surprising; ten years ago Joe would have made sure Adam couldn't find a way into the room, or he would have already escaped out the window to the outdoors. But now he simply sits with an impassable expression and wary eyes as he watches Adam walk in. The fallen plate still rests on the ground.

Adam crouches down and picks it up, along with the ruined eggs. When he stands up it's with a raised brow. "Well, Pa's not going to kill us quite yet."

Joe snorts, half-amused. "He's had a lot of oppurtunities to do that already. If he hasn't by now he's not going to."

It's as close to an apology as he'll probably receive. Adam sits back down in the chair after he's picked up the tray and placed it on the side table. "You do have a point. There are plenty of cliffs around here."

The hint of a smile grows despite Joe's best efforts. "Trees falling."

"Rivers."

"Stampedes."

"'I don't know how it happened, my sons were just standing there on the edge of a cliff and they fell off.'"

The smile is still there, for which Adam is thankful. It's odd now that they can joke so soon after a fight, but of course this wasn't such a typical argument. The wariness in Joe's eyes has vanished for the most part now that he knows what way Adam's reacted. "I'm sorry."

"I shouldn't have pushed you the way I did, Joe-"

"And I shouldn't have shouted the way I did, either." For a long moment they sit in silence and then Joe pulls himself up straighter. "Let's just call it even, yeah?"

Adam nods, willing to concede. "I was going to suggest a deal."

One eyebrow sidles upwards as Joe frowns. "What kind of deal?" he asks suspiciously.

"You tell me as much as you can about what I want to know and I'll make sure Hop Sing makes you something you actually want to eat."

This time Joe laughs, unable to help himself. "You always were wily, Adam," he admits, but there's something in his expression that lets the oldest bother know the deal sounds good. Granted, it takes quite some time before he actually replies. His expression darkens considerably as he tries to find the words he needs. "He kills me."

The answer takes Adam aback. "What?"

Joe flinches. "Tanner corners me in a ghost town, just like he really did, but then his footsteps change, and he's not Tanner anymore, he's..."

Brother Hoss. Adam can fill in the blanks himself easily enough, and a shiver runs down his back. "And he shoots you." It's not a question.

Joe lays his head back on the headboard so that's looking up at the ceiling. "In the head," he chokes out.

It's a horrifying thought, that outcome, and it confirms in Adam's mind that the teachings that the mind can play powerful tricks is true. Hoss was truly incapable of any such violence against his family members, and Joe knows that as well as any of them. "It was a dream," he says softly. "Just a dream."

"But it felt real!" Joe exclaims, and his voice shakes. "I wake up and I feel the pain in my forehead where he shot me." He looks at Adam again, suddenly helpless and pleading. "I'm not supposed to think of Hoss that way, Adam."

Adam leans forward. "And that's why you haven't been sleeping now. Or eating."

"Every time I close my eyes that's all I see."

Not all. Adam remembers the name 'Alice' spoken in the same dream over and over again in the same tone of fear and dread, but if Hoss's name brings about such a violent reaction he doesn't know how Joe will react to his murdered wife's. He'll leave that for another time. "I had a lot of dreams about Kane," he admitted.

Joe nods, looking back up at the ceiling. "We knew."

He's not wholly surprised. "There were times when I dreamed I was wandering that desert forever, dragging Kane's body behind me. Other tmes he choked me to death."

"How did you stop dreaming that?"

Adam shrugs uncomfortably. "They've never gone away completely," he admits reluctantly. "But I've found reading helps. Staying busy."

"Don't think Pa's gonna let me go break any horses right now," Joe says.

Adam grins. "I'll bring you a book then. How does Shakespeare sound?"

The fierce glare shot his way makes the joke entirely worth it. Joe's dislike of anything of the Bard's is legendary. "Only if you want me to fall asleep reading it. Or throw it at your head."

"I'll see what I can do."


	5. Chapter 5

_**"Chapter 5"**_

Raised voices from the living room wakes Joe up from the light doze he's slipped into. Pa and Adam locking horns, a sound he hasn't heard in nearly ten years. Curious despite himself he lifts his head and realizes that he's still outside on the front porch. The weather is fair today and the sun is warm, so he managed to convince Pa to let him sit outdoors for a few hours. It's been nearly six days since his fever broke and Paul has already given his opinion that it's unlikely to come back at this point, and the walls have been driving him loco for the past six days.

His limbs creak with stiffness as he slowly, very carefully, lifts himself up from the chair and closer to the open window that sits above Pa's desk. He smiles in a mix of humor and fond exasperation for both Pa and Adam at their clear lapse of judgment.

They know, after all, that he's within hearing distance.

And since when Joe Cartwright turned down the chance to eavesdrop?

They really should learn. Until Jamie found his way to them, Joe had always been the baby of the family, the youngest. The one in most need of protection. And in Pa's eyes that included family troubles. Up until he was eighteen he had been perfectly content to live a life of childish fun and opinions and worrying most about stepping out of his (terrifyingly large) family's shadow. He'd learned to sneak and eavesdrop and read his pa's and brothers' expressions and body language in order to learn what it was that was being withheld from him.

And besides that, how often had he sat beneath this very window, usually with Hoss by his side, and listened to the arguments between Pa and his oldest brother purely for his own enjoyment?

"-he's barely begun to recover from his illness, Adam," Pa is saying angrily, and with a jolt Joe realizes that their topic of discussion is him. Better and better, he thinks sarcastically, but his curiosity is piqued despite itself.

"I'm not proposing anything of the sort," Adam retorts. "I understand quite well how bad it was, but don't you suppose that staying here to lick his wounds and recover is not the ideal course of action in this circumstance?"

"Joseph has always found his home a haven," their father responds tersely, but from beneath the window Joe himself finds that he can't entirely share the sentiment.

As if able to hear his thoughts, Adam says, "A home doesn't always end up a p;ace of refuge, Pa. Sometimes the best course of action is to step away from it for awhile."

Suddenly he thinks that it isn't the best of ideas to overhear any more. Lifting his suddenly heavy feet from the floor, Joe carefully backs away from the window and steps off the porch completely. He has no desire to interrupt this particular argument, and he doesn't want either his pa or his brother to find him overhearing a part of it.

He makes his way to the barn. The walk across the barn is both horribly far but also terrifyingly quick but the familiar smell of hay and horses and manure is enough to settle him.

Temporarily, at least.

He heads for Cochise's stall, the black-and-white head lifted to look at him with soft black eyes. The aging mare nickers at him. Smiling despite the clear reproach of that sound, Joe reaches out and rubs a hand down the strong, smooth neck and tangles his fingers in the long mane. Cochise lifts her head and nuzzles at his face, her muzzle bumping his nose in a kiss only horses can give. "'Lo, old girl," he says softly. "Been a good girl for Candy while I've been gone?"

She snorts and lowers her head enough to sniff at the sling around his neck, her long ears pricked forward. He's thankful for the fact that he hadn't been riding Cochise the day Tanner wandered into his campsite- he has no idea what the madman had done with the horse he had been riding then. He supposes it doesn't really matter. Thinking of Tanner at all does him no good at all. Cochise has been spared and that is what he chooses to focus on.

He can't help but think about what he's just overheard though. For eighteen years of his life he'd chafed at the bit of being Ben Cartwright's youngest son, and time after time he had tried to assert his independence away from the famous family name. Over and over again he had taken jobs and tasks as a show that he was someone more than just 'Little Joe' Cartwright.

He hadn't begun to mature into anything of the sort until he realized that the harder he fought the farther it took him from what he truly wanted. So he'd finally accepted the fact that he was the youngest. With it he accepted the family name and everything it stood for, both good and ill, and he didn't fight for independence from his father or brothers anymore. As Pa so often liked to say in his youth, 'A house divided against itself cannot stand.'

He wants to go away now, though. Very badly.

He can never admit to Pa how much he can't bear to be on the Ponderosa's land. But he's caught in his responsibilities. Hoss is gone, and Adam has no intentions to stay to help run the ranch. He's obligated to stay as the only remaining adult son.

He wonders how Adam knows how he's feeling. His older brother's words with his father is proof enough he knows: 'A home doesn't always end up being a place of refuge.' Thar's what he said, and Joe can't help but think that in this case his oldest borther is completely right.

Agreeing with Adam. Joe grins wryly at the thought and tugs at Cochise's forelock gently. "Think I'm going senile in my old age," he murmurs, and then he outright laughs when the old mare snorts as if in hearty agreement.

~/~/~/~/~

It's late that same evening when Adam walks down the hallway of the ranch house on his way to Joe's room. The subject of sleeping arrangements has never really come up yet; he's mainly been sleeping in the chair next to Joe's bed or passing out on one of the sofas downstairs. But the several closed bedroom doors he's walking by raises his curiosity. Pa had mentioned Hop Sing placing his travel bags in his old room, but of course Adam had opted to keep his belongings with him simply because he'd known he wouldn't spend much time in another room.

So he stops at the door of his bedroom and he pushes it open before he stops and stares in open astonishment.

Three years ago Adam had met a woman whose only child- a son- had died of fever. The little boy had been gone for close to five years but still his mother had kept his room exactly as he had left it before he was taken to the doctor's. The coverlet was covered with dust and the books were crooked on their shelves. His clothes were hung neatly in the closet and the shoes were still sitting at the end of the bed.

As far as Adam knows, those things are still there.

"It's been like this since you left."

Joe's quiet voice speaks up from behind him; turning, he finds his younger brother gazing over his shoulder at the darkened room beyond. Adam can't be sure but he thinks Joe is feeling the same slight unease this knowledge brings about if the darkness in his eyes is any indication.

He doesn't need to ask who it is who's kept his bedroom exactly as it's always been.

"Pa was always insistent that you'd be back someday," Joe answers his unspoken thoughts, and he looks at Adam now. There's something vaguely challenging to his gaze. "I don't think he thought you'd be gone for near nine years, though."

There's an accusation there somewhere in his tone but he doesn't quite know where it's aimed at. Or who it's directed at. Adam pushes the door open wider and gestures. "Care to come in?"

Joe doesn't shy away exactly, but there is definite unease there as he shakes his head. "I'd rather not."

Me too, Adam thinks, but he refuses to say it aloud. Instead, he looks closely at his younger brother and realizes he hasn't lost the ability to read him. The door shuts soundly and turns instead to Joe again. "Come on," he says, and he leads the way down the stairs and into the living room.

As Joe seats himself in one of the chairs beside the fireplace, Adam opens the doors of Pa's liquor cabinet and holds up a bottle of brandy. "I think we could both do with a bit of this tonight."

Again he sees Joe eye him warily. "Only if you don't try to get me drunk so you can ask me questions."

Adam manages a half-deprecating chuckle. "I learned my lesson from that a long time ago, trust me." He hands one of the glasses to his brother and sits down so that they're facing each other. They drink their first in silence, as well as their second, but by the third Adam feels brave enough to engage in conversation. He leans forward so that his elbows rest on his knees. "Joe, I wanted to talk to you about something. Pa's against the idea completely but I still wanted to bring it up and-"

"I heard you arguing earlier today," Joe interrupts him now, very carefully eyeing the bit of brandy still resting in the bottom of the glass. It's the closest thing to an apology Adam knows he's going to get for the eavesdropping, but he's more exasperated with himself than with his younger brother. He shouldn't be surprised that his talk with Pa was overheard. "About how a home can't always be a haven."

Ah. So that's what Adam's seeing in Joe's expression. Restlessness. It's a familiar feeling Adam knows only too well, and before he can lose his nerve he blurts out his proposal: "I would like it if you would visit Boston with me, Joe, when I leave to go back home. Stay with me a time, acquaint yourself with a change of scenery."

For a moment, Joe looks thunderstruck. Utterly taken aback by the idea Adam has just given he looks up and simply stares at his oldest brother, unable to say anything. Adam's not entirely sure whether to take Joe's silence as a good sign or a bad sign yet, but he's hopeful since there hasn't been an outright objection. Then Joe ducks his head again as if he's still a little boy who's just been scolded, and he fixes his attention entirely on the glass he holds in his left hand. "You know Hoss's room is kept exactly as he left it," he says softly, and the information is like a low dull punch to Adam's stomach. It takes another long moment before Joe continues. "I've wondered what Pa would do if something happened to me, if he would keep my own room untouched." His gaze is far away. "Three shrines where laughter used to be instead."

His younger brother had always had a flair for the dramatic and the poetic, but the unease shivering down Adam's spine is trying to shift into outright fear. Joe's never had these sorts of thoughts before, and they don't fit the happy-go-lucky brother he remembers at all. Suddenly he's certain he must convince Joe to agree to the trip. He can't stay here.

"Joe-"

"I can't, Adam." Joe finishes off the brandy in his glass and looks his anxious older brother in the eye. "I would like to but there's too much to do here. Pa needs help with the ranch."

"Joe, don't let the decision be because of someone other than yourself-"

"No, Adam." There's a tension there between them that hasn't been in nearly ten years, a warning in Joe's voice to not push his luck. Abruptly he stands and places the empty glass on the table, a clear dismissal of the conversation. "Thanks for the company and the drinks, but I'm going to bed."

Adam watches him mount the stairs, notices the ramrod straight back and the tension in his shoulders. He hasn't been upset by the proposal of the trip, Adam realizes, but by the implications of his leaving. For the first time in his life he curses the closeness of Ben and Joe Cartwright, and the unbreakable loyalty their pa inspires in the family. If he could only convince Joe that he can think of himself in this circumstance instead of worrying about someone else, he might have a chance to heal.

And not only from Tanner. That madman is only the latest in a long line of tragedies and horrible memories for Joe.

Joe's never had an easy time of letting go. His lifetime of missing his mother is proof enough of that. Hoss's death is still a raw wound and Adam hasn't even heard him mention the mysterious Alice. He's loyal to a fault and he's obsessive when it comes to those he loves.

Only now that's not helping him. Rather it's hurting him, and if his instincts are to be trusted, Adam's sure that in this circumstance it could very well be what kills him.

~/~/~/~/~

Joe's gone in the morning when they wake up. Cochise is not in her stall either, so it doesn't take either of them very long to put two and two together. "Candy," Ben barks as he comes back into the house, "go out and see if you can find him. He shouldn't be out riding now, he's not even supposed to be outside for long."

The Ponderosa's foreman looks uneasy as he catches Adam's gaze, but Adam can only shrug helplessly and nod. ben waits until the door closes before he rounds his attention on his oldest son.

"You talked to him, didn't you? You asked him about Boston when I specifically ordered you not to!"

It's impossible to lie to Ben Cartwright when he's in this mood. Adam doesn't even try. Meting his pa's gaze squarely he nods. "I did."

"Why, boy? What possessed you to ask him? He doesn't need to leave when everything he needs is right here-"

"Is everything he needs right here, Pa?" It's also a mistake to interrupt Ben Cartwright when he's in this mood but Adam does it anyway. Ben may be their father, but Adam himself is still Joe's brother, and he can't stay silent about this anymore. In direct difference to Ben's loud voice he speaks softly, to better push his points across.

Ben stands taller, pushing out his chest like a bull that's just been challenged. "He has his family, and his horses, and fresh air. Open spaces to roam, business trips that he can take."

"Business trips like the one to Fort Lowell?" Low blow, Adam knows, but it's not the only one he's prepared to use. "Anyone can wander into his path like Tanner did on one of those."

That point is made, and Adam has won it, he can tell by the way Ben struggles to come up with an argument and finds none. Instead his pa goes on to the next. "He's still the head of the horses, and he won't want to leave the training to anyone else."

"It seems to me, Pa, that Griff is quite good at handling the horses, if his time down in the corral is any indication. He's still on parole, too, isn't he? Give him the horses to work on as a way to distract him from the fact that he can't leave the Ponderosa."

It is true, that Griff iss gifted with the horses. It hadn't taken very long for him to find his way down to the fields where the herds were kept, and even shorter a time for Joe to have him up on one of the bronc's in the corral. It had become readily apparent that he was almost as good on horseback as Joe himself was, and it became something of a game for both the young ex-convict and Ben's son to see how well the horses could be gentled between the two of them.

Clearly Adam sees he's won this point as well, because again there's no denying his reasoning.

Instead, his pa goes for the one thing he's sure Adam won't find a protest for. "His family, then. He's got all of us here, and you can stay for as long as you want to help him!"

He's going to break something in Ben's heart, Adam knows, but all he can think of is Joe's words from last night: _Three shrines where laughter used to be._ "A home where Hoss is dead?" he counters coldly. "A home where he can go and visit his dead mother and brother and ponder the losses? A home where he lost his wife and unborn child? Pa, this house isn't what he needs right now when you've kept my room and Hoss's like some kind of holy place!"

He watches Pa go very pale, but whether it's from anger or shock he doesn't know. Not until he sees Ben turn and find the nearest chair. He has no way of knowing that his words have driven the point home farther than he's ever thought possible, and all Ben can think of now is finding Joe standing among the burnt out remains of the house where he had lost so much. Remembering how his voice had cracked with strain and tears as he asked, 'Can't you see I'm home?'

Ben swallows around the sudden tightness in his throat. "How will I know if he's alright if I can't watch over him?" he asks quietly, all of his anger gone.

There it is. Adam sometimes forgets, when thinking of the unshakable, strong father he knows and loves, that Ben Cartwright is a man just like any other. A man with his own fears, his own losses he's faced. Of course he's afraid of letting any of his remaining sons out of his sight after everything he's gone through.

He walks over and lays a hand on his father's shoulder. He waits until Ben has looked up and met his gaze before he speaks. "Pa, if you don't let him go now it may be too much for both of you to handle. Let him leave for awhile so he can come back for good."

"Will he come back, Adam?" Ben demands. "How can you be sure he will want to come back if he leaves now?"

Adam manages a small grin, just enough to reassure his pa. He thinks of the way Joe's eyes have always lit up when the Ponderosa is mentioned, the love in his voice whenever he talks about his home. The Ponderosa holds him in a way it never has for Adam's wandering feet, and he thinks it always will. Even after everything that's happened. "No place will be home for him except for the Ponderosa, Pa. He was born and raised here. And he'll always come back for you. You know that." He's quiet for a long moment. "We all will."

It's all the comfort he can give, but maybe it's enough. Ben reaches up and grips his hand in his own, and it's all the answer they both need.


End file.
